Please only accept this debate if you intend on seeing it through. Do not forfeit rounds.

Doping ban: Currently, athletes in professional sports are tested periodically and randomly to check if they have taken banned substances which can boost their performance hence allowing them to have an unfair advantage. Guilty athletes may be banned from future events and/or stripped off previous achievements. We would dissolve this ruling, hence all athletes will be allowed to use whatever substances they want to prior to competing.

Firstly, today we already acknowledge and accept the use of various utilities, equipment, medication etc. not only to improve our lives but to accomplish amazing feats. A long time, the Royal Geographic Society in UK refused to allow mountain climbers to use oxygen tanks because this was a non-human device and as such, any achievement through using it is not a 'completely human' achievement. We have gone a long way from these times. Climbers use oxygen tanks to put their name on world peaks, swimmers use special suits (often engineered by big companies) to break records and body builders use creatine and protein shakes to improve performance during workouts and recovery times.

When we can already agree that these things are allowed, where do you draw the line between something which is 'natural' and something which is 'unnatural'. Some of the food you eat already contain the exact chemicals in drugs. Does eating more of these foods and absorbing its nutrients therefore be considered as illegal drug intake?

Secondly, the regulation and detection of athletes who are guilty is extremely inefficient. It is just too hard to monitor every single player in a tournament. This is evident when Russia was found guilty of mass doping of their athletes. Mamadou Sakho, the football player was banned ONLY AFTER his team Liverpool managed to enter the finals of the Europa League. His performance had already affected the match and arguably, his team would probably not have won.

Also, accidents happen. Examples include Maria Sharapova and Lee Chong Wei who were given long bans just for accidental intake of drugs. It is hard to imagine this was intentional because they are already big names in their respective sports.

Hence, for these reasons we should lift the regulations and ban concerning drugs for athletes. By allowing everyone to take anything, we are actually levelling the playing field with a lot less hassle.

What kind of message would we be sending our children if we allowed doping. A young boy with dreams of becoming a professional athlete would feel he has to use drugs in order to compete and pursue his dreams. We as a society should not promote the use of drugs. And you can't compare a special swimming suit or an oxygen tank to a chemical that has negative side effects on an athletes body. We should encourage our athletes to be as healthy as possible. Just because it is hard to screen every athlete for PEDs and the results havn't been perfect doesn't mean we should give up.

My opponent started with "What kind of message would we be sending our children if we allowed doping". To me, this is entirely subjective. What kind of message would we be sending if we allowed guns on the streets? If we banned marijuana but allow smoking? If we spied on people to prevent terrorism?

"A young boy with dreams of becoming a professional athlete would feel he has to use drugs in order to compete and pursue his dreams." It really depends on the level of competition. If it was an amateur competition and most people join for the satisfaction and fun of it then there is nothing wrong with allowing contestants to take drugs or not since the main motivation for these people is not to win, but to challenge themselves. At the highest levels, where athletes already receive a lot of funding from governments and sponsors, there is nothing wrong with allowing them to take drugs AS LONG AS everyone is allowed to, openly and without secrets.

"And you can't compare a special swimming suit or an oxygen tank to a chemical that has negative side effects on an athletes body." If you have an issue against chemicals, I suggest you wake up. We are surrounded by carcinogens on a daily basis which we use to improve ourselves. Deodorants, anti-pesticides for vegetables, injections on poultry to become fatter produce more eggs to feed an every increasing population. "We should encourage our athletes to be as healthy as possible." It is up to them whether or not they choose to take in extremely harmful substances. As long as it is an act of free choice, surely they have a right to consume what they want. Here, I would also like to highlight that these drugs are seldom extremely dangerous substances. With correct application and suitable doses, they can be used in a healthy manner to stimulate the muscles and organs. If athletes fail to follow the prescription, it's just like an obese person who chooses to consume too much foods.

This way of thinking is too defeatist. Just because all of our policies don't represent the moral values we would hope to bestow on our children doesn't mean we should give up on trying to provide a good moral example. If we allow doping in sports every athlete would have to dope in order to compete. With so much money involved as motivation to gain every edge available all athletes would be doing it making it nearly impossible to not do it in order to have a chance to compete. This would send a very real and clear message to our children. That if they want to pursue their dreams to one day play for the Yankees or the Lakers or the Patriots they better start sticking needles in their butt because otherwise they don't stand a chance. I am saying there is something wrong with that and I would hope the majority of parents would agree.

Again your defeatist way of thinking leads you to assert that just because we come in contact with harmful substances on a daily basis that there is nothing wrong with adding one more. I would argue that we should limit our contact with harmful substances as much as possible. As for any safer alternatives that are banned let us also talk about the integrity of the sport. Should a person using unnatural chemicals have an unfair advantage over someone who is all natural? How can you say someone broke the record when they used a substance not available to the person who set the record decades before?

Let me get this straight. I'm not pushing for this because we are giving up on trying to ban drugs. I believe in this because i don't see why we should continue to put so much effort in something which can be get rid off.

That's where you've got this wrong. You think we are "giving up" on law enforcement.

Where exactly do you draw the line between something natural and something unnatural?

The comment you made about breaking records. Hello. Wake up. Today even sports attire which is engineered with aerodynamics etc gives athletes seconds of time ahead from athletes of previous generation. We should look into that since you clearly think that's "unnatural".

I apologise that I have to conclude early because I am actually away from home and am typing this on mobile.

I invite my opponent to use only 1000 chars because that's what I'm doing here. It is up to him whether he wants to or not.

Just because you cant't catch every athlete that is doping doesn't mean you should just give up and lift the ban and let every athlete dope openly. If you did every athlete would be doping and you wouldn't be able to compete unless you used dope. This would promote the use of dope among children who dream of becoming a professional athlete. Almost all of the banned substances have negative side effects on your health from heart attacks and strokes to the shrinking of your testicles. We do not want our children taking unhealthy substances especially while their bodies are still growing. Lifting the ban would be telling them that it is okay to use these drugs. That is the most important point. Are we going to force people to use unnatural drugs in order to compete? I think that is immoral and damages the integrity of the sport. As far as the swim suit and the oxygen tank for climbing I would agree with the Royal Geographic Society it's not completely human but that's another debate.

Con doesn't have much actual offense, merely saying allowing doping would send a bad "message" to children. There's no impact from "sending a message." Con doesn't actually articulate any *real* harms from such a culture being created, and doesn't actually prove that doping would be normalized if the ban on doping is lifted. Con also doesn't explain *why* athletes should be as healthy as possible.

Pro's case consists of a lot of defensive claims, but it also has more offense, namely that (1) there's no objective standard given for what should be banned and what shouldn't be banned, and without that, there's no limiting principle that exists (what makes doping different from anything else?), and (2) people accidentally dope and get convicted of it, which means innocents could face harm. Con does nothing to rebut these two claims outside of random appeals to emotion, so I have Pro's second impact outweighing Con's case. Clear win for Pro.

Reasons for voting decision: Pro's case is solid. He argues that athletes already have plenty of "unnatural" ways to gain advantages over one another, and many athletes secretly use performance-enhancing drugs anyhow, so we might as well just lift the doping ban and level the playing field for everybody. Meanwhile, Con's case was essentially just an appeal to emotion, which relied on the assumption that drug usage is inherently immoral. Pro correctly called out that assumption as unsubstantiated, and Con didn't really rebut any of Pro's case outside of repeating the emotional appeal over and over again. Thus, by the end of the debate, the resolution is affirmed, and I must vote Pro. If Con had demonstrated some real, well-evidenced harms of normalizing the consumption of performance-enhancing drugs in professional sports, then perhaps this would have gone differently, but he didn't, and so my decision stands. Anyways... good debate! Both of you are quite good at articulation.